This was the first Olympics EVER with athlete sanctioned blogging, which meant that most key players were standing by to see what would happen or dipping a cautious toe into the social media waters.
Bottom Line: We did a synchronized canon balled into the deep end with Lenovo, and the Voices project blazed a trail for other sponsors, OC's, Federations, and countries who will use social media to support, or lead, their Olympic efforts in the future.

2) THE POWER OF... A SOCIAL MEDIA SAVVY CLIENT

The Lenovo team we worked with was lead by David Churbuck, and included Alan White, Esteban Panzeri and Tim Supples. These guys GET social media. They blog, they Twitter, and they'll do whatever comes next as well.
Bottom Line: Being a part of a team that's hip to social media allowed for us all to collectively take the project to the next level.

3) THE POWER OF... A REACTIVE TEAM

One of the perks of #2, is that the team worked in real time to react to social media mentions and improve the campaign. When a post appeared on Search Engine Guide criticizing the Voices site for not incorporating SEO as well as it could have, the second commenter was Lenovo's Esteban Panzeri, the tech lead for the project. He commented on Lenovo's point of view, made some tweaks to the site, and then posted a more detailed response on his own blog - which is now the lead in to the original Search Engine Guide Post. No freakouts about a partially negative post, no frantic blackberry messages about the "next step", just smart quick action.
Bottom Line: The Voices campaign was made better because we acted on word of mouth the campaign generated. Yours could be too!

4) THE POWER OF... AUTHENTICITY

We preach this one hard every day, but Voice of the Olympic Games really demonstrated the value of authenticity. The Voices program won kudos for taking the very essence of the Olympics, the athlete experience, and sharing it in a spin-free way that had never been done before. Bottom Line:Authenticity must be a key element of ANY WOM campaign.

5) THE POWER OF... RESULTS!

And of course there were results. Looking at good ole' traditional "reach" metrics the Lenovo Olympic sites reached over 1.5 million worlwide visitors. 200 mentions on various social media sites reached an additional 10 million UMVs. The Facebook app had over 250,000 downloads, the Zumobi mobile app more than 60,000 downloads (58k plus from iPhone users.) But the real success came with the engagement metrics. The 100 athlete bloggers posted over 1,500 posts about their Olympic experience. These posts generated 8,000+ comments from fans around the world who were eager to connect with Olympians big and small. Over 1.5 million invites were sent through the Facebook app. This project really connected people and got them talking.
Bottom Line: Lenovo accomplished its mission of using Lenovo technology and social media to connect athletes and fans.

So friends, as we leave you tonight, I hope you'll enjoy this video we've put together featuring the highlights from the Voices project. There's no better way to understand the impact technology had on athletes in 2008 than to hear it straight from them. This is Bob Costas Kaitlyn Wilkins signing off.

Comments

Kaitlyn,
Very well put! You were the heart and soul of this project! No stone was left unturned. You really raised the bar and then you raised it again and again and again. There is nothing like seeing pure pashion at work. Thnaks for covering the other 90% that Bob Costas couldn’t begin to address. I do hope that I can do another one of these with you one day. It was a pleasure doing business with you.